


The Bounty

by Soloh



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 14:32:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17205158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soloh/pseuds/Soloh
Summary: James Fraser is an innocent man, bruised, beaten, and bested to a rope tied capture by Claire Beauchamp of The Watch, who thinks him guilty.





	The Bounty

**Author's Note:**

> Something I posted on Tumblr a couple of weeks ago.

It had been a trying day for Jamie Fraser.

 

A guilty man by his own admission in near every way, from sedition to bootlegging and even obstruction (though for the life of him, Jamie never understood the charge) that had him scaling the stone walls of his imprisonment to escape the ire of a deviled cattail.

 

Not however for the crime of murder that had him beaten ragged as a wretch before he pissed his breakfast of whisky to the wind that morning at the roadside inn. It was a stramash that ended with Jamie knocked flat on his back, swollen and bloodied from head to shins and very nearly his balls, with his attacker straddled at his waist. His very own _sgian dubh_ held sharply at his throat.

 

The knife had been a parting gift from his sister, Janet. Given with a kiss that barely reached his cheek, and a breath stealing embrace that forced a promise from her little brother to keep himself well and whole until they met again.

 

It was _Hers_ now.

 

Lungs heaving, pulse racing and bones terribly aching, Jamie had spat his defeat aiming right between the she-wolf’s brows. Bitterly, he missed his mark as she angled her chin, the spittle only catching her witching curls and she, shallow breathed herself, curled her bruised budding lips in victory.

 

This woman his heart thought moments before was a gift from _Lady Luck_ herself.

 

Then she clocked him to a head-splitting blackness.

 

Now in the dead of winter, Jamie was forced to walk behind the tail whipping ass of a horse named, Gideon, with his wrists bound without remorse to it’s saddle. She sat atop her roan stallion, hat tipped low to keep the chill from her face, her rifle strapped to her back and coat thickly padded to her knees, concealing every manner of death strapped underneath.

 

Claire Beauchamp.

 

Huntress for The Watch.

 

And a sassenach no less.

 

Peering up from his death march, where one eye was a purple swelled beauty, Jamie observed the dreary scrap of sky awakening in rippling black clouds that soon crackled with tempestuous thunder, sizzling with violet flashing lights.

 

The wrath of a storm was upon them.

 

Yet, Beauchamp steered them onward instead of seeking shelter beneath the trees, or at the very least a crude lean-to to wait out the whims of the heavens. She only quickened their strides, he and her damned horse to a neat a gallop. But the longer they continued forward the fiercer the storm became.

 

Flurries lashed down, growing to an onslaught that obscured the trail they had been traveling on making it difficult to see more than a few feet in front of them. Even the towering trees surrounding them bent closer together, thrashing and groaning from the bluster.

 

Beauchamp, (stripped of her hat, hair raging unbound) was forced to unmount from Gideon lest she found herself thrown from the saddle, leaning on the mammoth beasts heaving ribs with the reins firmly held around her fist while the other stroked him reassuringly that all would be well.

 

Then a brutal gust sounding of the wailing _Bansidhe_ slammed Jamie down to his face. His tongue biting profanities and cries for Beauchamp to halt were drowned in the slurried ice, lost in the wind as he was dragged by his rope-bitten wrists against the piercing undergrowth. The minutes ticked by in desperate writhing, the wet cold seeped past layers of linen and wool, poisoning his heartbeat that quieted with every choking gasp taken.

 

Jamie floundered to rise again and again with draining strength, his body stiffening to a corpse as he was swallowed in a sea of white.

 

Gruesome panic invaded Jamie’s mind in bleak imaginations of his hands and feet rotting black, nothing but stumps they would be if he lived. But more than that he worried with marrow deep dread about his blasted cock, numbed from any semblance of sensation, snapped in two’s and three’s if it hadn’t already.

 

Then the ground stilled.

 

Jamie would have accepted his fate right then and there as his frost clumped lashes sealed shut to a welcoming darkness. How peaceful it would’ve been to fade away from the rampage of winter eating away at his flesh, to be free of the harsh rope rooting him to the shit smelling horse - _May the creature be consumed by he when they met in hell._ To the sassenach who had him march through this vicious storm - _May She suffer above all._

 

Sweet plans for vengeance were interrupted when Jamie felt himself being flipped to his back - teeth clanking, limbs convulsing, sight glazed over in a dazed sheen. Then came a hard strike to his cheek, a bolt of heat so practically scalding that he craved for a fist to knock him senseless next.

 

But it was a shake of his shoulders and jerking of his hair set to leave him bald that had Jamie awakening eye to eye with hellfire.

 

“On your feet, you bloody Scot! I swear I’ll cut this rope and leave you here to die if you don’t!” Beauchamp snarled with such hostile passion it almost felt of love, fluttering Jamie’s heart with warmth strangely so.

 

Like the wings of a vicious wasp, he thought.

 

“Is that the angel of mercy who speaks so sweetly to me?” Jamie clapped his eyes shut in joyful anticipation as the words fumbled from his numbed mouth. “Have ye come to deliver me from that wee foul breathed bessom?” His lip was split red as she slapped him to a stupefied bliss again.

 

“Are you done yet, Fraser? Or shall we engage in your virtues next?” Jamie bit down on his busted lip in answer, relishing the fleeting warmth of her ruthless touch.

 

“Good,” she puffed to his cheeks, while swatting her hair whisking wild from her face. “Down the hill is an old cottage, I’m sure of it. That’s all that’s left to will your body forward but if I have to get Gideon to drag your arse then so be it. Now move, damn you!”

 

If Jamie had cared for Beauchamp beyond the wish to see her hog-tied, he would have seen her mounting fear as the snow whirling down piled higher and thicker, daylight sinking to an unforgiving night.

 

But he hadn’t.

 

“Ye are a cruel bitch of a woman, Beauchamp,” he grumbled wearily.

 

She breathed out what he thought was a laugh, strained with fatigue as was he. Trembling, Jamie hauled himself upright with Beauchamp at his side.

 

Sgian dubh aimed readily at his gullet.

 

 

____

 

Down the hill and wretchedly farther still sat the stone cottage that may as well have been blessed _Shambhala,_ a haven amidst the blight raging outside it’s a sacred walls.

 

Stitched with sleet, Jamie had collapsed to his knees in exhaustion barely one foot past the threshold while Claire, faring slightly better (even as her heart was with Gideon, holed up in a stable that seemed only suited for mules), had stumbled blindly in the dark after tying him off, where every jutting corner was a “rutting bastard” hissed from her mouth.

 

A fire finally kindled from her efforts, slowly, too slowly, illuminating the room in a thawing heat. There was a lopsided bed wedged in the corner topped with moth-eaten linen and patchy rabbit furs, musty as the stale air of the room itself quickly singeing with smoke. Aside, was a pitiful supply of logs sloppily stacked against the now flickering hearth, while on the opposing wall sat a large pantry where stoneware jars were stacked plentiful behind its shabby hewed doors that refused to shut. Their content’s questionable, except for a few tall bottles glowing divinely in amber gold.

 

All of it was layered softly in a gloomy dusting of abandonment. Willingly or not.

 

Claire didn’t really give a damn what befell the last inhabitant, as long as his shoddy handiwork hadn’t been used to thatch the roof and erect the walls.

 

With her arms wrapped around her to settle her shuddering, she looked over at the hefty silver sum that would deliver her freedom wondering what exactly to do with him.

 

Jamie was kneeling as if in prayer, arms too enclosed around his chest, leaning his matted-wet brow against the bed frame she had tied him to shaking mightily, his breathing uneven, looking so very small. A stark contrast to the intimidating bulk of man that had wrestled her easily to the ground, the air gutted from her lungs as her slight palms were engulfed by the whole of his and pinned above her head. There was an odd look of shame in doing so that shadowed his eyes and crinkled their corners, where for a moment she questioned if she had the right man.

 

Then Jamie chucked her beneath the chin, scolding her as if she were a belligerent child. So it was only natural for her to bite him sharply on the hand and bash her forehead to the bridge of his nose in response.

 

Regretfully, it hadn’t broken.

 

More regretfully that his leg had been jammed between hers, and she missed kneeing his balls entirely.

 

“I ken I’m a handsome man, much to admire -”

 

“You prick,” she moaned with a twirling of her eyes.

 

“But I’d rather ye loosen these ties lest I freeze, or must I gnaw my teeth to it like a dog to a bone?”

 

Claire snorted to push any sympathies down, passing her palm over her temple to rake through her tangled curls, reminding herself the man was a crook and an accused murderer no less. “I’d maybe consider if you hadn’t knocked me in the head, slammed me to the floor, played filthy and yanked at my hair. Then proceeded to -”

 

“That was me being decent wi’ ye, Beauchamp. Count yerself blessed I didna sheath yer dirt-ragged curls from yer heid wi’ my bare hands.”

 

She fixed Jamie a glare that had him biting that aggrieved bottom lip once more, wincing, nostrils flaring. “You’d be missing that hand there if you even dared to, stomped to mulch by my boot, the rest of your flesh my horses hooves.”

 

“Och, instead I had to settle for ye trying to spill my belly for the crows to feast. Soaked me red down to my shins, ye did.”

 

"You’d be dead if that were true, Fraser, but a delight to know a mere scratch is all it takes to best you in a fight. In truth you underestimated me. Admit so and I’ll pour that bottle of spirits to a bowl for you to drink.” She flicked her chin to the pantry behind her. “Dog to a bone indeed.”

 

A guzzle of instant sunburn for a truth he had no issue speaking was a fair trade for a man whose pride had been walloped out of him.

 

“Guilty I am of that. Though I assure ye, I never meant harm above a bump to yer heid.” While the statement was sincere he thought a leather strap to her fat arse was what she deserved. But it seemed the Almighty disagreed with him as a violent convulsion crawled over his skin desperately seeking to rid itself of cold.

 

A jolt of alarm trickled in Claire’s veins as she mentally smacked herself for letting her temper distract from the most immediate threat to her future. With a clear eye, she assessed his deteriorating state edging dangerously towards hypothermia, weighing the odds of him waking in the morning or not at all. Worse yet with a cold that reduced him to a miserably tempered child nearly three times her size that she would undoubtedly have to care for.

 

Sputtering something filthy at a further realization, Claire crossed the small space between them to crouch before Jamie, his face dead white, mouth gaping wide as she spoke to him.

“Once I loosen this rope you’re to strip yourself bare with the bed yours to have for the night.” May it be infested with fleas and lice, she chanted inwardly. "But I swear Fraser, if you try anything I’ll throw you in the fire to roast red as swine.”

 

“Are ye so starved, lass?” Jamie sucked in the smoky air through his teeth as Claire roughly handled his tender wrists, her brow raised in silent threat.

 

“I canna stand, nor feel a damn ounce of me down to my arse, Beauchamp. I’m no harm to ye,” he glanced down at his battered self. ”As ye’ve already proven.”

 

“I damn well have.” She agreed.

 

“Besides,“ he blinked owlishly. "Where the hell would I go?”

 

The ropes were wet and knotted frustratingly tight but once removed she saw his blistered skin peeking from underneath the cuff of his sleeve. Claire stifled the instinct so intrinsic within her to rub a salve to them that she kept in the pockets of her satchel. Resisted the urge to take his shaking hands between hers until pliant and warm.

 

Instead Claire choked out a question that had his cheeks burned in a scandalized glow, the only semblance of warmth to enliven his face.

 

"Will you need assistance in undressing you think?”

 

“My hands are no’ ruined yet!” Jamie wiggled his cold bitten fingers, throbbing from the movement, to slap against her hand. So relieved, Claire didn’t even bother to retaliate.

 

“Nor will I bare myself in front of a lass, even if she is one such as you.”

 

“Such gentlemanly behavior to worry about my sensibilities. Stuff it.”

 

Patting her knees, she rose to occupy herself by the hearth while behind her Jamie mumbled, “I’m more worrit if I’m still altogether a man.” Claire huffed a laugh she quieted with a press of her smooth calloused palm.

 

She stayed that way with her hands extended to the fire until she heard a grunting yip from him, that had her twisting to witness his buckling fall to the bed. Ruddy arse in the air. Perfectly in view.

 

“Of all the bloody idiotic men for me to hunt.”

 

Claire stomped over to Jamie sinking to the barely there mattress, grabbing his ankles to haul the rest of him in, then pulling the furs right over his head as he struggled to keep his dignity in hand and out of sight. That is until she thrust her hand beneath the furs to find his _(”A Dhia, Sassenach!“_ ) and tied him to the bedpost. Her curls tickled his nose and lips softer than the furs, smelling of earth, the green things he thought long dead until spring.

 

“I’ve had dreams bein’ tied like this,” Jamie said, wrists fidgeting at her attention. “Much more pleasant mind ye.”

 

“When I said to do away with your gentlemanly behavior I didn’t mean that far. Remember you’re still exposed, Fraser.” Claire finished tying him off with one final pull that had him flinching yet grinning like an idiot. She thought he must be touched with fever and laid her touch to his cheek and brow, her thumb lightly skimming the bruises and cuts.

 

“Mebbe I will dream of ye, all sweet and tender like, where ye only bite me every other kiss.”

 

She smothered him with a pillow.

 

Jamie thought that would be the end of it, but Claire came to him again with a grimy stained cup and very gently, surprisingly so, brought it to his parched lips. He drank and drank until his toes curled with heat. She tucked him further in where not a part of him was exposed as his cracked lips were still a “dreadful shade of blue.”

 

“Ye sound like one of the auld bitty healers or a mother hen.”

 

“I was once,” he thought he heard her say. But to which one he didn’t ask.

 

Claire settled herself to a rickety chair in front of the crackling fire (wishing the flames were bigger, soaring, an inferno to consume her) where his clothes were drying atop the sooty stones, listening to the sounds of the storm thrashing against the house, sneaking through the cracks of the banging shutters spitting snow.

 

They both wondered what the next day would bring, their eyelids drooping ever closer to a restless sleep. Dreaming about the other they despised so very much.

 

Even though this woman would soon own James Fraser’s heart and soul. His very name he would offer her in eternal devotion. Brought forth in a whisper that crashed against her lips.

 

And another, and another…

 

For Claire Beauchamp, there would come a time she would think fondly of this night, would dream and covet the sanctuary of the little room, where the only red to cover Jamie’s body was his summer kissed hair that brushed him like a bear.

 

Not his own bleeding heart that stained his skin sticky black, splattered to her cheeks raining down tears.

 

Not her hands pressuring at the wound willing the blood to stop as she sobbed.

 

_Please_

 

_Please_

 

But again much later, yet not nearly far enough.

 


End file.
